By David Zucchino, Los Angeles TimesJanuary 19, 2013, 5:09 p.m.KABUL, Afghanistan — She was just an ordinary brown mutt, a stray, but Pvt. Conrad Lewis loved her.Lewis, a British paratrooper in Afghanistan's Helmand province, adopted the dog and named her Pegasus. Everyone called her Peg.In his letters home, Lewis described Peg as a member of his military family: "I have taught her to sit and give me her paw.... She patrols with us, she is not afraid of the Taliban or their bullets."

When Lewis was on Christmas leave in Britain in 2010, he told his father, Tony, that Peg was so important to him that he wanted to bring her home when he returned from his deployment. "That's your job, Dad," he said.Two months later, in February 2011, Pvt. Lewis was dead at 22, shot by a sniper. READ FULL ARTICLE

Anatomy of a Tiger - Learn about the very real threat to these beautiful creatures

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men." ~Alice WalkerThe source of the quote is Walker's preface to Marjorie Spiegel's 1988 book, "The Dreaded Comparison" . Her next sentence was, "This is the gist of Ms. Spiegel's cogent, humane and astute argument, and it is sound."